After Samsung announced the Galaxy S4, its futuristic slab of a smartphone, it was only a matter of time until LG countered. Today, at a jazz hall in New York City, LG dealt its hand in the form of the new G2, and not surprisingly it's a lot like the other phone shipping from Korea this year.

It has its power and volume buttons on the back. I'm pretty sure that's a comfortable location - but boy it looks terrible. Like Samsung, LG also slaps an absolutely horrible skin on top of Android, further adding to the dreadfulness of the G2. Yet another reason this is essentially an S4 with the buttons on its back.

I guess I'm not the target customer for this stuff. I wonder if any of us here are.

From Samsung being singled out and enjoined to "stay classy" in regard to a practice common to the industry to this utter & simplistic dismissiveness over this latest LG phone, I am beginning to think you didn't chew your kimchi properly once, Thom, and have somehow remained in the rut of Koreanophobic trauma as a result.

You need to go up the mountain, mate, and return with a tad more objectivity.